Weather Woes
I just heard from CharterWave bareboats expert Heather Freckmann, who’s trying to get home from Baja, California, after a week of being tied to the dock because of 40-mile-an-hour winds. Her bareboat charter ended up being a dockside hotel, as conditions were simply too rough to go sailing at all.
Her predicament reminded me of a crewed charter yacht that I once reported on during a gale-force windstorm in the Bahamas. I, too, ended up tied to the dock all week, as even this larger motoryacht couldn’t handle the rough seas that the winds had churned up around the reefs of Harbour Island.
The lesson that I learned during my ordeal is that a charter yacht’s crew is even more important during bad weather than it is when you have smooth sailing. When the scenery outside isn’t changing for an entire week, it becomes the crew’s job to ensure that you are even more pampered inside the yacht on a daily basis.
In my case, the crew onboard Princess Marcie bent over backwards to make the yacht seem like a new destination every single day. I’d return to the boat after an afternoon of scouting around the island, and I’d find that the chef and chief stewardess had created elaborate theme nights that transformed the evening’s dinner experience into a Pirate Night or a Caribbean Night or some other exotic enchantment.
Unpredictable weather is yet another reason you want to ensure you book a charter yacht with the best possible crew. Be sure to work with a reputable charter broker when selecting your yacht and crew, and even the worst weather won’t be able to spoil your vacation.